John Pule

John Puhiatau Pule ONZM (born 18 April 1962) is a Niuean artist, novelist and poet. The Queensland Art Gallery describes him as "one of the Pacific's most significant artists".

Pule was born on 19 April 1962 in Liku, Niue, and arrived in New Zealand in 1964. He was educated at Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland.

Describing the beginning of his literary career, Pule explained:

He also described his writing as a means of "decolonizing his mind". His work expresses his experience as a Niuean in New Zealand:

Pule's first novel, The Shark that Ate the Sun (Ko E Mago Ne Kai E La), was published in 1992. Burn My Head in Heaven (Tugi e ulu haaku he langi) followed in 2000, and Restless people (Tagata kapakiloi) in 2004.

His published poetry includes Sonnets to Van Gogh and Providence (1982), Flowers after the Sun (1984) and Bond of Time (1985).

In 2000 Pule was the University of Auckland Literary Fellow and in 2002 took up a distinguished visiting writer's residency in the department of English at the University of Hawaii. In 2005 he was awarded an art residency at Roemerapotheke, Basel, Switzerland and in 2004 he was honoured with the prestigious Laureate Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.. In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours Pule was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services as an author, poet and painter. He was awarded the Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing at the University of Canterbury in 2013.

Pule's artwork includes painting, drawing, printmaking, film-making and performance. The topics of his work include Niuean cosmology and Christianity, as well as perspectives on migration and colonialism.

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